Sister Teresa Part 3

The burning wood shed a pleasant odour which mingled pleasantly with that of the dressing-table; and she wandered about the room, her mind filled with vague meditations, studying the old engravings, princ.i.p.ally pictures of dogs and horses, hounds and men, going out to shoot in bygone costumes, with long-eared spaniels to find the game for them. There was a mult.i.tude of these pictures on the walls, and Evelyn wondered who was her next-door neighbour. Was it Owen? Or was he down at the end of the pa.s.sage? In a house like Thornton Grange the name of every one was put on his or her door, so that visitors should not wander into the wrong room by accident, creating dismay and provoking scandal. Owen, where was he? A prayer was offered up that he might be at the other end of the house. It would not be right if Lady Ascott had placed him in the adjoining room, it really would not be right, and she regretted her visit. What evil thing had tempted her into this house, where everything was an appeal to the senses, everything she had seen since she had entered the house--food, wine, gowns? There was, however, a bolt to her door, and she drew it, forgetful that sin visits us in solitude, and more insidiously than when we are in the midst of crowds; and as she dozed in the scented room, amid the fine linen, silk, and laces, the sins which for generations had been committed in this house seemed to gather substance, and even shape; a strange phantasmata trooped past her, some seeming to bewail their sins, while others indulged themselves with each other, or turned to her, inciting her to sin with them, until one of them whispered in her ear that Owen was coming to her room, and then she knew that at his knock her strength would fail her, and she would let him in.

Her temptations disappeared and then returned to her; at last she saw Owen coming towards her. He leaned over the bed, and she saw his lips, and his voice sounded in her ears. It told her that he had been waiting for her; why hadn't she come to his room? And why had he found her door bolted? Then like one bereft of reason, she slipped out of bed and went towards the door, seeing him in the lucidity of her dream clearly at the end of the pa.s.sage; it was not until her hand rested on the handle of his door that a singing began in the night. The first voice was joined by another, and then by another, and she recognised the hymn, for it was one, the _Veni Creator_, and the singers were nuns. The singing grew more distinct, the singers were approaching her, and she retreated before them to her room; the room filled with plain chant, and then the voices seemed to die or to be borne away on the wind which moaned about the eaves and aloft in the chimneys. Turning in her bed, she saw the dying embers. She was in her room--only a dream, no more. Was that all? she asked as she lay in her bed singing herself to sleep, into a sleep so deep that she did not wake from it until her maid came to ask her if she would have breakfast in her room or if she were going down to breakfast.

"I will get up at once, Merat, and do you look out a train, or ask the butler to look out one for you; we are going to Glasgow by the first quick train."

"But I thought Mademoiselle was going to stay here till Monday."

"Yes, Merat, I know, so did I; but I have changed my mind. You had better begin to pack at once, for there is certain to be a train about twelve."

Evelyn saw that the devoted Merat was annoyed; as well she might be, for Thornton Grange was a pleasant house for valets and lady's maids. "Some new valet," Evelyn thought, and she was sorry to drag Merat away from him, for Merat's sins were her own--no one was answerable for another; there was always that in her mind; and what applied to her did not apply to anybody else.

"Dear Lady Ascott, you'll forgive me?" she said during breakfast, "but I have to go to Glasgow this afternoon. I am obliged to leave by an early train."

"Sir Owen, will you try to persuade her? Get her some omelette, and I will pour out some coffee. Which will you have, dear? Tea or coffee?

Everybody will be so disappointed; we have all been looking forward to some singing to-night."

Expostulations and suggestions went round the table, and Evelyn was glad when breakfast was over; and to escape from all this company, she accepted Owen's proposal to go for a walk.

"You haven't seen my garden, or the cliffs? Sir Owen, I count upon you to persuade her to stay until to-morrow, and you will show her the glen, won't you? And you'll tell me how many trees we have lost in last night's storm."

Owen and Evelyn left the other guests talking of how they had lain awake last night listening to the wind.

"Shall we go this way, round by the lake, towards the glen? Lady Ascott is very disappointed; she said so to me just now."

"You mean about my leaving?"

"Yes, of course, after all she had done for you, the trouble she had taken about the Edinburgh concert. Of course they all like to hear you sing; they may not understand very well, still they like it, everybody likes to hear a soprano. You might stay."

"I'm very sorry, Owen, I'm sorry to disappoint Lady Ascott, who is a kindly soul, but--well, it raises the whole question up again. When one has made up one's mind to live a certain kind of life--"

"But, Evelyn, who is preventing you from living up to your ideal? The people here don't interfere with you? n.o.body came knocking at your door last night?"

"No."

"I didn't come, and I was next door to you. Didn't it seem strange to you, Evelyn, that I should sleep so near and not come to say good-night? But I knew you wouldn't like it, so I resisted the temptation."

"Was that the only reason?"

"What do you mean?"

"Of course, I know you wouldn't do anything that would displease me; you've been very kind, more kind than I deserve, but--"

"But what?"

"Well, it's hard to express it. Nothing happened to prevent you?"

"Prevent me?"

"I don't mean that you were actually prevented, but was there another reason?"

"You mean a sudden scruple of conscience? My conscience is quite healthy."

"Then what stayed you was no more than a fear of displeasing me? And you wanted to come to see me, didn't you?"

"Of course I did. Well, perhaps there was another reason... only...

no, there was no other reason."

"But there was; you have admitted that there was. Do tell me."

And Owen told her that something seemed to have held him back when the thought came of going to her room. "It was really very strange.

The thought was put into my mind suddenly that it would be better for me not to go to your room."

"No more than a sudden thought? But the thought was very clear and distinct?"

"Yes; but between waking and sleeping thoughts are unusually distinct."

"You don't believe in miracles, Owen?" And she told him of her dream and her sudden awaking, and the voices heard in her ears at first, then in the room, and then about the house. "So you see the nuns kept us apart."

"And you believe in these things?"

"How can I do otherwise?"

Owen sighed, and they walked on a few paces. The last leaves were dancing; the woods were cold and wet, the heavy branches of the fir-trees dripping with cold rain, and in the walks a litter of chestnut-leaves.

"Not a s.p.a.ce of blue in the sky, only grey. It will be drearier still in Glasgow; you had better stay here," he said, as they walked round the little lake, watching the water-fowl moving in and out of the reeds, and they talked for some time of Riversdale, of the lake there, and the ducks which rose in great numbers and flew round and round the park, dropping one by one into the water. "You will never see Riversdale again, perhaps?"

"Perhaps not," she answered; and hearing her say it, his future life seemed to him as forlorn as the landscape.

"What will you do? What will become of you? What strange transformation has taken place in you?"

"If--But what is the use of going over it again?"

"If what?"

"What would you have me do? Marriage would only ruin you, Owen, make you very unhappy. Why do you want me to enter on a life which I feel isn't mine, and which could only end in disaster for both of us." He asked her why it would end in disaster, and she answered, "It is impossible to lay bare one's whole heart. When one changes one's ideas one changes one's friends."

"Because one's friends are only the embodiment of one's ideas. But I cannot admit that you would be unhappy as my wife."

"Everybody is unhappy when they are not doing what Nature intended them to do."

"And what did Nature intend you to do? Only to sing operas?"

"I should be sorry to think Nature intended me for nothing else.

Would you have me go on singing operas? I don't want to appear unreasonable, but how could I go on singing even if I wished to go on? The taste has changed; you will admit that light opera is the fashion, and I shouldn't succeed in light opera. Whatever I do you praise, but you know in the bottom of your heart there are only a few parts which I play well. You may deceive yourself, you do so because you wish to do so, but I have no wish to deceive myself and I know that I was never a great singer; a good singer, an interesting singer in certain parts if you like, but no more. You will admit that?"

"No, I don't admit anything of the kind. If you leave the stage what will you do with your time? Your art, your friends--"

"No one can figure anybody else's life: everybody has interests and occupations, not things that interest one's neighbour, but things that interest herself."